Viral attack
by Kasi Karra
Summary: Everything seems peaceful and alright on Loeh . . . until everyone's life points begin to mysteriously drop. R&R Please read "The Healing Kiss of Loeh" to get background information on the world of Loeh and how it all started.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey Everyone,**

**Thank you for all of your support and reviews on my stories. If you have any ideas just make your own story. I'm not putting an end to Loeh too soon. Please R+R and enjoy.**

Jeremy sat in the middle of his room. His legs were crossed and his eyes were closed. In front of him lay his bostaff and 2 keyboards. His room was unfurnished, but thousands of blue screens filled the room.

Some of the screens had pie charts and some had fluctuating bar graphs. A couple had updates on his friends regarding hit points and such, while a couple others showed the stillness of the Loeh landscapes.

Everything was perfectly quiet in that eerily lit room, until a clock on Jeremy's left gave a quiet, peaceful, chime announcing 1:30 am.

But Jeremy's attention was drawn to the globe on his right. The floating globe was what he thought Loeh looked like, and right now the forest region was pulsing red.

"XANA," Jeremy whispered with a smile. He turned to face the globe as he grabbed a keyboard and placed it on his lap.

With his left hand, Jeremy began to type away. Faster and faster until it was impossible to keep up. With his right hand he touched the forest region of the globe. The region expanded into a detailed digital map.

"Any idea as to what the tower's for," Aelita asked sneaking into the room.

"Not a clue," Jeremy replied causing another screen full of calculations to appear in front of him. He watched the calculations scroll through for a minute before opening another screen to type hypotheses on.

Aelita nodded as she sat down her back to Jeremy. She picked up the extra keyboard and began her own search. "Everything seems normal so far."

"And I've located two possible towers," Jeremy said hitting enter. Aelita turned to look over Jeremy's shoulder at the towers' location on the digital map. "They are both close, but the problem is that they are in opposite directions. The good news is that I think I have a new program that I would like to try out."

"What kind of program did you make this time?" Aelita asked.

"This is a deactivation program, but it still has a few bugs that I don't think I can fix. With this program, anyone will be able to partially deactivate a tower."

"But if they only partially deactivate it, that means that XANA will guard that tower more closely,"

"But it also assures us which tower to deactivate and then we aren't making our offense teams so small,"

Aelita nodded. "We don't have a lot to lose," she said as she covered her mouth as she yawned.

Jeremy smiled. "We'll head out in the morning," he said giving her a kiss. "Get some sleep."

Aelita smiled. "All right," she said giving in. "You get some sleep too."

"I'd love to, but for some reason, I can't. No matter how hard I try. I think that when I virtualized myself I became a little more digital then human and I therefore don't need as much sleep."

Aelita sighed as she got up. "All right. See you in the morning," she said walking out the door and sneaking down the hall, for fear of running into a very strict, angry, sleep deprived Jim.

Jeremy smiled as he turned back to the many screens and continued typing again. He pulled up a document that had a list of upgrades. "Nicholas's upgrade program. Done," Jeremy said checking it off. "Download starting . . ." Jeremy said as a little popup screen with a bar on it appeared.

'5 complete' it read.

"That should be done, and over with, by tomorrow morning," Jeremy said with satisfaction.

Touching the screens he moved them off to his left and pulled up a couple of new screens. "Now to figure out XANA's real motive . . ."

The clock ticked on, the only other sound in the tiny room, was Jeremy's constant typing.

The clocked finally chimed 7:00 am as another pop-up popped up. The tiny screen began to flash red.

"What on Earth?" Jeremy asked as he pulled the screen a little closer and enlarged it. On the screen was a tiny animation of Ulrich's body to show where bullets hit in a battle. Next to the body was a bar for Ulrich's life points.

Jeremy watched the bar as for no reason, it began to steadily drop.

"What's going on?" Jeremy asked. "This doesn't make sense," Jeremy muttered in alarm as he grabbed his bostaff and rushed down the hall.

Back in Jeremy's room, next to Ulrich's screen, a new screen popped up and began to flash red. This screen was similar to Ulrich's, but instead it had an animation of Odd . . . and his life points were steadily falling . . .


	2. Chapter 2

The sun was shining through the open window in Ulrich and Odd's room

The sun was shining through the open window in Ulrich and Odd's room. A cool breeze made the curtains gently sway from side to side. All was quiet and peaceful until . . .

"ACHOO!" Odd sneezed. "Man this sucks," Odd muttered as he pulled the covers over his head.

"Your telling me," Ulrich complained as he sneezed under his blanket two times in succession.

"Guys!" Jeremy exclaimed as he rushed into the room. "What's wrong with you guys?" Jeremy asked yanking the covers off of Odd.

"No," Odd moaned as he sat up and grabbed the covers back. Odd blew his nose in a virtual tissue that he'd gotten off the desk. "Hey Einstein," Odd said with a sad smile. "Looks like we have the flu."

"You what!?" Jeremy asked in shock as Odd tossed the tissue into the trash can where it devirtualized by itself. "Guys you need to get up now," Jeremy said urgently.

"Leave us alone," Ulrich sleepily complained from underneath his blanket.

"We have to get you guys up and run some diagnostic checks on you guys. We have to figure out what's . . . wrong . . . oh no," Jeremy whispered as he saw Ulrich sit up.

Ulrich's samurai outfit was gone . . . Ulrich had devirtualized and now he looked miserable in his normal cloths.

Jeremy turned to the opposite bed just in time to see the little blue disk appear above Odd's head. "Great," he muttered. Jeremy swung his bostaff in an arc in front of him, barely clearing Odd and Ulrich's head. Digital code flew from the axe's tip. The Digital code hit the walls of the room and began to run up and down them, forming a digital barrier.

Odd fell on to his pillow devirtualized with a sneeze and a moan.

"Now. Lets get to the bottom of XANA's plan," Jeremy said with an evil smile as two digital needles virtualized in his hands and excitement flashed through his eyes.

--

"_Jeremy what's wrong?"_ Aelita asked telepathically as she tried to open the door to Odd and Ulrich's room. She got another small shock from the digital barrier.

_"Odd and Ulrich have caught some kind of disease and I'm assuming that it's contagious. I'm running diagnostic tests right now."_ Against the far wall of the room Jeremy had set up a virtual labratory and was currently scanning samples of Odd and Ulrich's blood.

_"Any progress so far?"_

_"Yeah. This virus looks like it is mostly digital, but there are a few components that make it real."_

_"Like what?"_ Aelita asked confused.

_"Like the disease looks like it's a real prokaryotic cell (this is what a virus cell is called for all of you not in biology) but after careful dissection it is full of digital data instead of foriegn DNA."_

_"Oh. Is there a cure for it?"_

_"I think that Herve may be able to help, but his magic won't make the virus die. We'll have to deactivate the tower."_

_"I'll round up a small group and be ready to head out in 1 hour."_

_"Good. I should be done with this by then."_

Aelita nodded to no one in particular as she turned and ran off down the hall to the gym where she hoped she could recruit a couple of people.

--

Aelita pushed open the new heavy and fortified gym doors. She squeezed into the unusually dark room and turned on a light. Aelita almost screamed at the sight before her.

Moans echoed around the building as everyone cowered away from the light. Almost everyone in the gym was devirtualized.

Aelita noticed Nicholas standing nearby trying to help Sissi up.

"Good idea," Aelita said as she rushed over to help Nicholas. "We better get everyone back to their rooms." Nicholas nodded in agreement.

"_Jeremy?"_ Aelita called as she and Nicholas began to ascend the stairs with Sissi between them.

_"A little busy here,"_

"_It looks like the whole school has been infected."_

_"WHAT?!"_ Jeremy exclaimed so loud that Aelita cringed a little. _"This is more serious then I thought."_

_"Nicholas and I are trying to get the others to their rooms, but it's going to take some time."_

_"Good that upgrade worked."_

_"What upgrade?"_

_"I gave Nicholas and upgrade that cancels "extra" damage."_

_"Extra damage?"_ Aelita asked.

_"Like I believe in the snow area, we're going to loose hit points every moment we're there. This virus looks like it was coupled in it."_

_"Got it,"_ Aelita replied as she and Nicholas carefully laid Sissi on her bed. Aelita spent an extra minute making sure she was comfortable and then rushed out the door. _"Have you seen Jim?"_

_"No . . ."_ Jeremy replied opening his mind and searching._ "He's just entering the gym,"_ he finally replied.

_"Got it."_ "Nicholas?" Aelita asked. The assasian turned to face Aelita. "Can you go ask Jim to help you get everyone upstairs. I've got to go check something in Jeremy's room."

Nicholas nodded and disappeared in a blurry flash as he rushed downstairs.

Aelita smiled as she ran to Jeremy's room. "I was afraid of that," she whispered as she saw the many flashing red screens. Aelita hurried in and began to sort through the screens. Tamiya, Milly, Emily, Ulrich, Odd, Sissi, the list just kept going on. Aelita reached Herve's screen and saw that he had already devirtualized. "Great," she muttered to herself, as she turned to a new screen. Aelita took in a quick breath. "No," she whispered to herself. _"Jeremy we have to go NOW!"_ Aelita said urgently.

_"Okay, but why?"_ Jeremy asked taking down the barrier and dashing down the stairs.

_"The virus. It's already taking it's toll on my body,"_ Aelita said typing a few things on the screen.

"Transfering data" the screen read as it quickly transfered the data to Jeremy.

_"Okay let's hurry,"_ Jeremy said after studying the screen for a minute. _"If the virus doesn't speed up we have . . ."_

_"About 15 minutes"_

_"So we're going to have to take a gamble,"_ Jeremy said a little reluctently.

_"What kind of gamble?"_

_"I can't narrow down the location of the real tower and their both in opposite directions. It will take almost 15 minutes just to reach either of them."_

_"Well we have to try,"_

Jeremy nodded to no one, "_I know . . . I know . . ."_

_--_

A few minutes later in front of the gym Jeremy, Aelita, Nicholas and Jim went through the game plan one more time.

"Jim and Nicholas will head west while Aelita and I head east," Jeremy commanded. "Find the tower, try to partially deactivate it and report back here."

"Yes sir," everyone replied with a mocking smile.

"Here Jim this is for you," Aelita said tossing Jim a bracelet.

Jim raised an eyebrow in confusion as he put the band on. "What is it?"

"It's a communicator," Jeremy replied. "And we're hoping it works," he muttered to himself.

Aelita smiled. "Sorry Nicholas, we would have made one for you, but unfortunately you don't speak and you're going with Jim." Nicholas nodded.

Jim started running west. With the snap of his fingers his silver disk appeared. Jim jumped on top and flew off. Nicholas ran just a little faster.

"Lets go," Jeremy said as the overwing virutalized. Aelita nodded as she jumped on behind Jeremy and they took off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Dear Readers,**

**I'm so sorry for the errors on this chapter earlier. I've gone through and gotten rid of all the e-mail mumbo-jumbo. Sorry again for the inconvinience.**

The minutes are counting down before Aelita's devirtualization

12 . . . 11 . . . 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . (A few minutes were spent getting downstairs)

Nicholas reached the base of the tower in a blurry flash. He glanced at his watch and smiled. He'd set a new record.

Bullets fired close by him, narrowly missing him. Nicholas immediately stopped and turned his attention to the three krabes that surrounded him. He smiled a wicked smile as he pulled out his daggers and took up his fighting stance. The three krabes all aimed and fired at the now empty patch of grass. All that was left was a small patch of burnt dirt.

The three krabes looked around in confusion. Nicholas' swords flashed in the sunlight as his knives came down in an x-shape on the first krabe. The krabe staggered a few steps before blowing up. Nicholas landed with a successful smile.

The third krabe was quickest in regaining its composure. It shot at Nicholas and nailed him in the back. Nicholas turned so that he slid across the ground on his side. The second Nicholas had stopped sliding, he threw his knives, nailing the third krabe.

The third krabe struggled and blew up, sending Nicholas's knives flying into the forest.

The second seemed to take a second longer loading its bullet. It fired and hit Nicholas square in the chest. Nicholas was propelled backwards into a tree. Nicholas fell down and tried to catch his breath. If it hadn't been for that upgrade he probably would have been dead.

The krabe walked closer and loaded its bullet again. Nicholas stared into the krabes blank eyes. "This is what deaths like," he thought as he sat there, unable to get enough air in his lungs to move. The krabe was to about to fire, when Jim suddenly appeared and squashed it flat.

The krabe made a weird computer sound before melting away in a pile of digital data.

Nicholas stood up and swayed a bit.

6 . . .

"You're in no condition to go any where," Jim said, pushing Nicholas hard enough to make him sit back down. Nicholas held his head as the world spun in painful circles. "Don't do anything stupid," Jim said as he disappeared into the tower.

Jim entered the tower and looked around. "Now what?" he asked the little bracelet on his arm, his breath a little ragged.

"You're at the tower already?" Jeremy asked.

"Yes," Jim answered.

"Okay then," Aelita's voice said. "Step into the middle of the circle. It will create a . . . a vacuum that will make you travel up. Step off at the next platform." Jim nodded to himself as he followed Aelita's instructions. He was a little surprised when he traveled to the top of the tower, but he quickly got a hold of his wits. "Touch the pad and when it asks for the code, type in lyoko, L-Y-O-K-O."

"Okay," Jim said as he finished typing it in.

Around Jim a few of the screens fell.

5 . . .

_Back on the overwing . . ._

"We're headed the wrong way," they both said at the same time as they felt the tower partially deactivate.

"Great. What are we going to do now?" Aelita asked.

"Well we only have 5 minutes left. We'll have to make it to this tower and make a jump," Jeremy said over his shoulder as the overwing was hit.

Aelita screamed as the overwing went into a death spiral. Jeremy desperately tried to pull back as the ground came closer and closer and closer. Mere feet from the ground, Jeremy finally gave up. Jeremy tore Aelita's arms from around his waist, turned around and grabbed her. With one powerful jump and an unnecessary flip later, Jeremy and Aelita were on the ground surrounded by 4 hornets. Aelita could see the tower through the tree tops.

"_I see it_," Aelita said telepathically.

_"Me too. I can hold them off, but it's still a long run and there's a missing hornet_."

_"I'll be fine."_

_"Alright. On the count of three. One . . . two . . ."_ but Jeremy never made it to three, the hornets opened fire. Jeremy took a shot in the shoulder. He was thrown back a foot or two. Jeremy held his shoulder as for the first time on Loeh . . . he felt real pain.

Jeremy screamed as he felt the pain pulsing in his shoulder. It had been so long since he had truly felt pain that it was blinding for a moment.

Aelita jumped in front of Jeremy and put up an energy shield just in time to stop the next wave of hornet shots.

Still shaking, Jeremy stood up. "Go Aelita," he said.

"But Jeremy," Aelita began.

"GO!" Jeremy yelled at her as he jumped at the nearest hornet. With the slice of his bostaff he killed it. Turning the bostaff around he loaded two arrows and fired killing two more hornets. Jeremy landed with a triumphant smile.

The last hornet fired and hit Jeremy.

4 . . .

Jeremy screamed in more pain as he hit the ground on his knees. Aelita knew that his life points were still high because he hadn't been affected by the virus . . . but he was on the ground wheezing . . . or had he been affected by the virus in another way?

"Jeremy," she whispered as she tried to run to him. She only made it a few steps when he looked at her.

"I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE," Jeremy said in a deep angry voice that was not like him at all. She met his terrifying gaze and looked into his mad hate filled eyes.

"Jeremy," Aelita whispered as she stopped. This wasn't the same Jeremy she knew . . . "Jeremy!?"


	4. Chapter 4

"Jeremy

"Jeremy!?"

Jeremy gave a mad and evil laugh. Aelita took a step backwards in fear. The hornet fired again, pushing its luck.

Jeremy didn't even flinch as he effortlessly swung his bostaff, reflecting the bullet and killing the hornet. With the final hornet gone, Jeremy slowly advanced.

"Jeremy?" Aelita asked a little frantically, but she couldn't even find Jeremy telepathically.

"WHY?" Jeremy asked as he still continued to advance. "WHY?"

"Jeremy," Aelita whispered in fright as she continued to back up. In fear she finally turned tail and ran. She could hear Jeremy laugh behind her as he jumped into the air. She saw his shadow as he flew over her head.

"Oh no," she whispered as she saw the mad Jeremy land in front of her. "Jeremy please," she begged taking a step back.

Something sparked in his eyes. Jeremy closed them tight as he fell to his knees holding his head. He threw his bostaff in front of him. Aelita ducked as the bostaff flew over her head and into a tree. The axe head imbedded itself deep into the tree's trunk.

"go Go GO!" Jeremy yelled as he held his head. His long nails digging into his scalp. His blonde hair turned an angry red as blood spilt down between his fingers and down his arms.

Aelita didn't wait this time. Without another word she took off.

Jeremy stayed on his knees as he tried to even his breathing out. "Only 3 minutes left," he whispered through the sweat and blood. He moaned as he bent forward farther in pain. "Stupid XANA and his stupid virus," Jeremy muttered to himself.

Aelita rushed to the tower and entered without any further hindrance. Gently she rose to the second floor.

"Aelita," the little screen read as it recognized her handprint.

A table of contents and a couple other screens appeared. Aelita looked around at the little screens. "This tower's already been deactivated," she said quickly closing the screens.

Carefully she jumped back down to the first floor.

"I hope this works," she said to herself as she approached the edge and looked into the endless darkness. Aelita knew that this worked on Lyoko, but this was Loeh. Was she really going to be able to transfer towers on Loeh . . . and if this didn't work, where would she end up? Maybe this will be a future story.

She threw her arms out and gently pushed off.

Nicholas sat meditating in the middle of the tower. Nicolas had his legs and arms crossed. He looked calm and relaxed and he was hovering about an inch off of the ground.

Jim had thrown him in the tower for his own safety. Literally thrown him in. Jim had left even though he knew he only had a few minutes of being virtualized left.

Nicholas's ears perked as he heard quiet footsteps behind him. Too quiet for Jim.

Quickly digging a spare dagger out of his boot, Nicholas turned to see Aelita land on the edge of the platform.

"It's alright," Aelita said making a small screen appear. She quickly checked something on it and then made it disappear. "30 seconds," she whispered.

Nicholas nodded pretending he knew what was going on as he "floated" out of Aelita's way. He watched in interest as Aelita floated to the second level. "Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry," she whispered as the computer registered her hand print.

"Code," the screen finally read as a blue disk appeared over Aelita's head.

"No," she whispered as it started to descend.

With the snap of her fingers the keyboard appeared. "Lyoko," she typed as fast as she could. The blue disk stopped right above her wrists.

"Good," she whispered as she relaxed a little. "Tower Deactivated."

Nicholas looked around interested as the tiny screens fell down the sides of the tower. He smiled and silently laughed to himself. This may be the only time he ever saw this.

Out in the forest Jeremy finally relaxed. "Stupid virus," he muttered to himself as he retrieved his bostaff. With ease he tore the bostaff out of the tree trunk. He moaned as he sat down and pulled a blue screen up above his bostaff. "Man that virus completely messed my programming up I went completely mad and lost all control." Jeremy muttered as he began to type away. "Return to the Past now," he said as he finally hit enter.

The familiar white light erupted from the tower and covered the planet.

Jeremy sat in his room surrounded by thousands of tiny blue screens. Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief as he looked around.

"Everything's back to normal," he said with a big grin.

"At least for now," Aelita said entering the room with a big smile. "My hero," she said as she kissed him . . . and he kissed her back.

-Out in the hallway.-

Nicholas smiled up at Jim as he stood in the dark hall way. Jim looked sleep deprived and really angry.

"You know it's past curfew," he said in an unhappy inpatient way.

Nicholas nodded as his grin grew bigger. He quickly turned and ran away in a digital blur.

Jim's nerve snapped and he punched the near by wall as hard as he could. He clenched his fist and held in a scream of pain as the wall didn't break. Jim stormed away muttering something about Jeremy being too smart for his own good.

Back in Jeremy's room, Aelita and Jeremy looked at the wall in a little fear as they saw the screens still shaking. They listened as the heavy footsteps faded, but still they didn't make a sound. Aelita held her breath and counted to 20 telepathically.

Finally she reached 20 and they both broke out in laughter.


End file.
